Qualities of an ideal catamaran for racing.

Everyone has different ideas about what makes the best catamaran. From the perspective of JUST racing, the largest multihull fleets in the US are the Hobie 16 fleets. Not in every location, but overall. If your sole interest in sailing is to race in a large fleet, this is you best multihull bet. At the same time, a laser or C420 or a lightning is even a better choice from the perspective of shear numbers. Now if you are sailing a catamaran, the assumption is that there is some minimum level of performance that you want in your racing craft. If this is the case then there are different points at which a boat becomes high enough performance and enjoyable to sail for a particular person. If for instance you like sailing H 16’s then by all means do so. For a fairly large fraction of the multihull sailing community, a higher performance boat with better sailing characteristics is desired. Unfortunately, this may be incompatible with having large fleets. Now a person has to choose between a large fleet and the sailing characteristics he desires. Personally, I figure if you are going to be competitive at a national level you are going to be training 3 out of 4 days of actual sailing that you do. The other day is racing. Assume that on average you are going to sail 60 days per year. This would imply that you are going to race about 15 days per year. 5 of these days will be NA’s, continentals etc. This leaves you 4-5 buoy’s regattas that you attend and try to do your best. What is left is 45 days of practice, hopefully much of it with a tuning partner, a lot of it by yourself. Unless you have a boat that you love to sail, those 45 days are not much fun and you soon quit doing them. Once you have a boat that makes you smile whenever you sail it training becomes much easier and more productive.

So, getting back to the original idea of what qualities to look for in a catamaran, here is my list

1. Fun to sail in the winds commonly expected where I live, i.e. light weight, responsive, tunable, reliable
2. Easy/ fast to rig alone or with your crew if applicable
3. Training partner available
4. Good national and international competition
5. Good local competition
6. Affordable at whatever income level you are at (includes regular replacement of expendables like sails and lines)

Eric Anderson A class # 28, former Dart 18,H 14, 16, Nacra 5.8, and 6.0 owner